Some success was obtained in later sittings, in the guessing of names and in the execution of mental commands. But the experiments had soon to be abandoned, on account of the health of the percipient.
Other experiments with diagrams, in addition to those above referred to, will be found in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., vol. i. pp. 161-215, by Mr. Gurney, the writer, and others; vol. ii. pp. 207-216, by Mr. W. J. Smith. The paper on Thought-transference, etc., by Professor C. Richet, Proceedings, vol. v. pp. 18-168, should also be consulted in this connection.
CHAPTER III.
EXPERIMENTAL TRANSFERENCE OF SIMPLE SENSATIONS WITH HYPNOTISED PERCIPIENTS.
As already stated, the hypnotic state offers peculiar facilities for observing the transmission of thought and sensation. It is possible that the superior susceptibility of the hypnotised percipient is in some measure due simply to the quiescence and freedom from spontaneous mental activity very generally induced by the state of sleep-waking. There are indications, moreover, that the hypnotic state itself may present in many cases a specialised manifestation of that rapport which would appear to exist generally between Agent and Percipient in thought-transference. But the close association of the telepathic activities with the consciousness which emerges in hypnotism and allied states suggests an explanation of a more general kind, and may possibly throw light on the evolution of the faculty itself.[26] However this may be, there can be no question that the most remarkable results in experimental telepathy so far recorded are those given in this and the following chapters with hypnotised percipients.
Transference of Tastes.
The fact that notwithstanding this recognised facility comparatively few observers have experimented with hypnotised subjects, except in one or two directions, calls for some explanation. There are, indeed, innumerable records of the transmission of sensations of taste and pain in the hypnotic state. The uncertainty attending any experiment in the first direction with subjects in whom special exaltation of any particular sense is not merely possible, but even under the conditions of the experiments probable, has been already pointed out. Such trials, conducted with a variety of substances nearly all of which are in some degree odorous, must necessarily lie under suspicion. To the references quoted in the preceding chapter (p. 21) and to the experiments of this nature recorded in the Proceedings of the S.P.R.[27] it will suffice here to add one further instance, in which the hypothesis of hyperæsthesia seems hardly an adequate explanation of the result. In a communication to the Revue Philosophique in February 1889, Dr. Dufay quotes the following passage from a letter received by him from Dr. Azam, the veteran historian of Félida X.:—
No. 10.—By DR. AZAM.